Surprise!
by Bonnie Gaynor
Summary: What are four Hogwarts professors up to in the dark dungeons on the night of 9 January? And why are they trying not to be heard or seen? / A birthday story for Severus Snape's 60th birthday (an adapted translation of my 2015 German story "Überraschung!").


_A/N: This is the English translation of my 2015 story "Überraschung" published on ffnet and ffde for Severus Snape's 55__th__ birthday. I just adapted it a little to fit his 60__th__ birthday.  
Please forgive any language mistakes you find as English is not my mother tongue. Thank you to Mo72 (ffnet) for checking whether this is readable and enjoyable (trust me, it's weird to translate your own work into a foreign language... some things just get lost in translation, no matter how much effort you put into it!)_

/

"Will you be quiet already! Somebody might hear us!" Minerva McGonagall hissed and waved the fizzing bottle of sparkling wine threateningly in the direction of her colleague Sybill Trelawney.

"But I See... I See that this can't go well!" Sybill insisted and wrung her hands, making her countless bangles chink. "We'll come to a bad end..."

"You, perhaps..."

"All of us!" the Divination professor sulked and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "You just don't want to admit that you've walled up your Inner Eye."

"And you're sure that Albus has agreed to all this?" Filius Flitwick squeaked in from below.

The two bantering women looked down at him with surprised faces. Minerva frowned.

"What Albus doesn't know won't hurt him, right?" she then grinned conspiratorially and waved for the rest of the group to follow her further down the dark corridor. "Come, now! Otherwise we might be too late!"

Filius shrugged and followed the Gryffindor Head of House. It was for a good cause after all. At least in a way. In a very weird way. Oh well.

They finally stopped in front of a heavy, iron-bound door.

"This must be the door. Damnit, I haven't been down here in ages, and every time it's gloomier..."

"Err, if I might say something..." piped up Pomona Sprout, who had not taken part in the conversation so far. "This is the wrong door."

Her colleagues stared at her with wide eyes, almost as if they were wondering where the Herbology professor got her insider information.

"Don't look at me like that. I swear, if you break in here, you won't end up where you want to."

"Where does this door lead, then?" Filius asked.

"To a secret panty closet," Sybill breathed huskily and firmly convinced. "Oh yes...! Full with tight, black..."

"SYBILL!" Minerva hissed, and Pomona dropped the bouquet, scandalised and amused in equal parts. Quickly she picked the snowdrops that had already been half-frozen to death back up from the cold floor. "Hurry up!" The Transfiguration professor dashed away, her hairnet flying away and coming to rest ornamentally on a torch holder.

"I've got the camera!" Filius laughed and scampered after her, already pushing the various buttons eagerly.

"Deeeeeath...!" Sybill howled and shielded her eyes with her hands while running. "I See blackness, I See...! Ouch!"

"I'd see the same if I did it like you! Come on, now, get the glasses and go! It's supposed to be a surprise!" With this, Pomona jogged away into the darkness.

A resigned sigh. "Always the same with those star-senseless earthlings..."

Meanwhile, Minerva was poking around with her wand in the keyhole-less lock of another dark wooden door, all the while muttering various obscene swear words under her breath.

"This... has to open... somehow...!" Aha...!" Triumphantly she slid the softly creaking door open and stepped into the room beyond.

Filius, Pomona, and a little belatedly Sybill, too, squeezed in behind her, although the latter was swaying a little and leaned onto the wood, breathing heavily. With a loud click the lock snapped shut again. Pitch-black darkness surrounded the four intruders.

"OK... I didn't expect that to happen..." Minerva muttered in a low voice.

"Oh please, don't make such a fuss! _Lumos_!" Filius lit his wand, took a step forwards and, with a shrill squeal, crashed into a high-backed leather armchair.

"Don't be so noisy!"

Now in the wand light, the little group could make out three doors leading off the room. Without further ado Pomona grabbed the handle of the right door, but it only opened into a chamber which was utterly crammed with tightly-filled shelves. Sybill's door was much more interesting in comparison - a white-tiled yet rather unadorned bathroom came into view. A couple of white towels, a black dressing gown...

"So it can only be..." Minerva held her breath and came to a halt directly in front of the third and last door, her colleagues gathered closely around her. They listened intently at the thick wood but not a single sound came from behind the closed door.

Somewhere in the distance the tall tower clock began to toll. One, two, three...

"Four, five, six..." Filius counted excitedly.

"Seven, eight, nine," Pomona added.

"Tennnnn, elevennnnn, twelvvvve...!" Sybill ended theatrically.

Everybody was holding their breath. Then -

"SURPRISE!" Accompanied by battle cries, Minerva pushed open the door and the entire bunch tumbled into the bedroom.

"What the heck...?!" hissed a still drowsy but nevertheless very angry voice. A thin, extremely dishevelled shadow was sitting in the bed, straight and energised like a live wire, and when the light fell on it eventually, it turned into a furious, extremely dishevelled Severus Snape. "It's the middle of the night - WHAT are you doing in my bedroom?!"

Beaming and uncorking the bottle of sparkling wine, Minerva approached him. "We're here to congratulate you! Happy birth-" The cork came loose with a deafening bang and bounced against the dungeon ceiling before raining down onto Severus's bed clothes with the rest of the bottle's contents. "Happy birthday to you!" Minerva giggled and distributed what was left of the sparkling wine into five champagne glasses - two of them a little splintered - held by Sybill. She thrust one of the glasses into the hand of the befuddled and irate Potions Master. "To you, my dear! To the next 60 years!"

And Filius, who had already used up all of the film in his camera with weird, overexposed snapshots, struck up a song with Pomona - loudly and out of tune:

**Happy birthday to you**

**Squashed pumpkins and stew**

**Beer of butter**

**In the gutter**

**Happy birthday to you!**


End file.
